Friday, September 28, 2012

Freeman
has received Academy Award nominations for his performances in Street Smart, Driving Miss Daisy, The
Shawshank Redemption and Invictus
and won in 2005 for Million Dollar Baby.
He has also won a Golden Globe Award and a Screen Actors Guild Award. Freeman
has appeared in many other box office hits, including Unforgiven, Glory, Seven, Deep Impact, The Sum of All
Fears, Bruce Almighty, the Dark Knight trilogy, and March of the Penguins.

Most people don't know, however, that he made his Broadway
debut as Rudolph in Hello, Dolly starring Pearl Bailey and Cab Calloway in
1967. This was not just another version of the hit show by Michael Stewart and
Jerry Herman.

It was a happening!

When the Bailey company premiered
at the National Theatre in DC before Mr. Merrick decided to take it to New
York, Rudolph was played by an actor named Richard Kye-Kahn. Morgan replaced him at the National Theater in
Washington DC.

By the time the show got to Broadway Mr. Freeman had replaced
him.

Morgan had just closed in the first play he was in in New
York. In 1967, he got his first role Off Broadway, in a play called The Nigger Lovers, about
the Civil Rights Era, at The Orpheum Theater, which also featured

Stacy
Keach ,Viveca Lindfors and Jeff Sproul. It opened and closed quickly
in 1967. It was Morgan’s first real acting lesson.

He had auditioned as a replacement for Dolly. Unfortunately,
the first “Rudolph” had issues that caused him to be fired.

When it came to taking on the role of Rudolph, Morgan said
you just learn your moves and what you have to do.

He knew that Rudolph was the
head waiter of a high end restaurant and he acted accordingly. He was very
happy with what he brought to that production. He had a steady job for eleven
months.

When it comes to Miss Bailey, Morgan says she was an
excellent entertainer and woman. She always gave a hundred and ten percent. She
was a great role model for professionalism, maybe the best he had. He learned
so much from watching her. He loved her.
They spent time together backstage on matinee days. She invited Morgan to
functions she was involved in. He remembers Bailey’s husband, Louie Bellson,
opening at The Riverboat in NYC. She invited Morgan which was a big deal to
him. He was also invited to dinners at her home.

Calloway, President and Mrs. Johnson, Pearl Bailey (National Theater)

Pearl Bailey wanted to take
this company all over the world but it didn’t happen.

The score and the book
were exactly the same as for the previous white Dollys but Pearl added her own
personality, a “child” here and a “honey” there, her expressive gestures and
her rich, inimitable voice. It was
sometime hard to tell where Dolly Levi ended and Pearlie Mae began and she was
quite aware of that.

In addition to the show itself, much has been written
about her “third act” after each show. Morgan saw Miss Bailey give and go
beyond her one hundred and ten percent at each show. A lot of the chorus and
dancers would stand on stage behind Miss Bailey and Mr. Calloway as they
continued to entertain their audiences. She got a lot of flack for this from
the company and Morgan thought it was very unprofessional of the company to complain.

Cab Calloway was terrific. He was Cab Calloway. He was
really over shadowed by Pearl and sometimes you could see it. He wasn’t
resentful but sometimes he was quirky.

At the time, there was a lot of controversy surrounding an
all African-American company of what was a traditional all white show. Now,
with productions, such as the recent Broadway production of Streetcar Named Desire starring Blair Underwood,
people think less of it.

Could an all white show currently running on Broadway make
the same transition in today’s Broadway?

Morgan asks where is the Mr. Merrick
to pull it off?

Morgan absolutely feels that Hello, Dolly is among the top five best shows of his career.

They
were always sold out. He considers himself “just one of the players.”

There are
no small players. He enjoyed himself. Everybody brings something particular to
their own role. The Waiter’s Gallop,
he had to master. He had to learn to thread his way through on coming dancing
waiters without bumping into anyone or dropping anything. The show was very closely
choreographed.

There was one point where “Rudolph” had to serve dinner to Dolly
and Horace. One night, Morgan was on his way out and one of the units that
rolled on and off stage was coming off and Morgan turned to go on and bumped in
to it and dropped his platter. He had to go out there and tell her “No dinner
tonight.”

She laughed.

David Merrick was cool. He was a great producer. After they
opened in New York, he sent a memo for all the male dancers to tone down the
make-up. From October 11th,
1967 when this production of Dolly had its first performance at The National
Theater through March 28th, 1969, it was described as a constant
love-in. The cast was very much aware that they had a big hit on their hands.

Morgan learned valuable lessons with his run in Dolly that
he has carried forward throughout the rest of his amazing career, a sense of
professionalism and how he conducts himself. Pearlie Mae loved the role and she
loved her audience and her love was returned in full measure, night after
night, performance after performance. Even matinees were filled to capacity. Morgan
got a strong sense of who he was in terms of the show. You get there on time.
You do your work. You do it full out. You give it your all every time.

Hello, Dolly at that time with an all African-American
company broadened the perspective of audiences in terms of what could be and
what was possible of who does what. Pearl’s Dolly broke the house record by
grossing about $90,000 a week in 1967 dollars and averaged 1,670 persons per
show at The National and 2,681 at The St. James.

Morgan has never seen any other actress beyond Pearl Bailey
play Dolly. David Merrick said after this production opened, “I looked for the
right cast for Dolly for four years and finally I found it.”

On the bulletin board
backstage at the National Theater, there was a note to the cast that
optimistically announced, “ Friday, November 10th, will be a dress
rehearsal at the St. James Theatre, your home for at least the next two years.”

Was there an increase in African-American audiences as a
result of this cast? Morgan doesn’t really know. This cast replaced the Betty
Grable company on Broadway which went on the road.

Lucia Victor who directed both companies was terrific according
to Morgan. She was one of those people that he would equate with Julie Taymor.

Morgan never did actively work with Jerry Herman. Jerry’s
involvement was done long before Morgan came on the scene.

The reason the title song ALWAYS stopped the
show? It was rousing Broadway. It was pure show business.

After eleven months, Morgan had another job and left this
Dolly company, to be replaced by Nate Bennett. He has never stayed with any
show very long.

Hello, Dolly was Morgan Freeman’s first big Broadway
professional show. The lessons in professionalism from Pearl Bailey are among
the best lessons in his stunning career.

Thank you Morgan Freeman for the gifts you have given to the world and will continue to give!!

With grateful XOXOXs ,

Check out my site celebrating my forthcoming book on Hello, Dolly! I want this to be a definitive account of Hello, Dolly!
If any of you reading this have appeared in any production of Dolly, I'm interested in speaking with you!

Thursday, September 27, 2012

Jim Brochu (“Zero Hour,” “The Big Voice: God or Merman?”)
will debut his new solo show Character Man at the Triad Theatre on Monday,
October 1st at 9pm for one performance only.

Jim Brochu’s trajectory into show business started on the
alter. As an alter boy, he thought theater and church were very similar. He was
on a “stage” and there were costumes, and lights, and wonderful music.

The first time he ever got a laugh, he was five years old in
nursery school in Bayridge, Brooklyn. He was a magician, he screwed up a trick,
the audience roared and he thought, “Gee, I like that
sound.”

David L. Lander and Jim Brochu, The Front Page

Jim was born in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. He grew up in the
Catholic Church, knowing that he was going to be the first Brooklyn born pope.
When Jim was thirteen, his father introduced him to his friend Ethel Merman.

Meeting Ethel Merman after a matinee of Gypsy,
whichwas a religious experience for Jim in which the path ahead of him
became very clear.

At that defining moment, Jim’s church became the theater.

When it comes to working on his craft, Jim is a night
person. Steve Schalchlin, Jim’s partner of twenty-eight years, is completely
the opposite. He gets up each morning around four AM to write. He writes, and
composes, and does his lyrics. Jim doesn’t start working until about ten PM.
That’s when the ideas seem to come and he works for a couple of hours. He
doesn’t have a set routine. He waits for real inspiration to hit. Until then,
he watches The Real Housewives of New
Jersey.

The advice that Jim would give to anyone who wishes to
follow in his footsteps is to focus. He thinks one of the reasons it has taken
Jim so long to achieve what he has achieved is that he has loved writing, he
has loved directing, he has loved producing. He has produced thirty two shows.
He has directed twenty plays. His main love has always been acting and being on
stage. He has always put that aside to do other things. If someone wants a
career in the theater, his advice to them is to be absolutely laser focused.

THE BIG VOICE – Jim Brochu and Steve Schalchlin. Photo by Ed Krieger

It
is not always talent that wins out. It is that drive, that incredible singular
drive. Keep your eye on the prize and go for it and put blinders on until you
arrive and then enjoy the view.

Jim and I spoke over the phone around three PM on Sunday
afternoon, September 23rd. I asked Jim what work he had done THAT
day on his craft and/or career. He had just had a meeting with his director,
Robert Bartley to discuss his next
appearance, Character Man, to be
presented Monday night at The Triad (See below for more details).

In 2006, Robert created Broadway Backwards, an annual event for
which he continues to direct, choreograph and write special material. He is
also directing this new off-Broadway show called Bedbugs. The team was over, including one of my favorite
musical directors John Fischer.

He is an old friend of Jim’s.

Jim and John worked together about ten years ago.

They have remained friends. Jim says there
is nobody better than he is. The team was over because Jim actually debuted
this show recently on a cruise ship. About two weeks prior to this interview,
they were caught in thirty foot seas for six days in a row and they missed two
ports. They needed extra entertainment and the cruise director asked Jim if the
Character Man show was ready. Of course
Jim told him yes and they plowed through it.

Everyone came over on the morning
of the 23rd to see a video of that show, Jim’s producer, Jeramiah
Peay and his stage manager, John Myer, and, of course, Steve. They worked on it
and Jim was given notes and ideas.

That was the work of the day.

Jim is very proud of a show that opened last night in
London, The Last Session. It is a
show that was born out of a lot of heartache.

It deals with Steve’s own
personal struggles with HIV and it was written at a very dark time in their
lives. It is a story about triumph and hope. They had a nine month off-Broadway
with it with Bob Stillman.

“Bob Stillman’s nervy performance is like a live wire that
both holds the show together and electrifies it.”-Feingold, Village Voice

Fifteen years later, it is now being done in London. Jim and
Steve were able to go over and meet the cast and watch the rehearsals.

Jim says
they are all sensational.

Steve is in London for last night’s opening. It has
come full circle. Jim is also proud of Zero
Hour, truly one of the best biographical shows I have ever seen. This is
Jim’s show about Zero Mostel which is an idea which took about thirty years to
come to fruition.

Back in January of 1970, Jim did an off-Broadway show called Unfair to Goliath.

Back then, Jerry Tallmer
who wrote for The New York Post, said,
“If they ever do the Zero Mostel story, Jim Brochu should play the part.”

About
ten years ago, Jim started to really think about this idea. He was approaching
the age Zero was when he died.

He died at the age of sixty two. Zero was in his
late fifties and thought that if he was going to do it, he might as well do it
then.

He started reading everything he could get his hands on. He talked to
anybody he could talk to who knew Zero. The script kind of wrote itself. He was
supposed to do six weeks in Los Angeles which has now turned into six years and
almost six hundred performances.

Zero Mostel - King Of Kings

When Jim was working on Zero
Hour, he studied Zero’s paintings. He was very fortunate one night. A total
stranger in the audience came up to Jim after a performance and told him that
her father shared a studio with Zero. They had “bought” each other’s paintings
when they were low on money. They exchanged paintings instead of giving
charity. Her father accumulated a lot of Zero’s paintings and she gave Jim one.
He is fortunate enough to have an original Mostel hanging in his living room! Jim also listens to music when he is working
on a show. Music is his great inspiration.

Linda Purl provided this next question for me. Who do you pray to when you are in trouble?
Jim’s answer is Ethel Merman! St. Ethel.

And the one thing that Jim would pray for is turning back to
the way things were in this industry.

When Jim first started out in this
industry, there was a way for actors to make the rounds and see casting
directors and agents. Now, there is a security guy at every building. You need
an ID and you need an appointment. He wishes we could go back to the old days
where it was a little bit more social and less scary.

He also wishes ticket
prices will go down.

When Jim is putting together a show, he works with the end
in mind.

That’s where he starts. He tries to figure out where he desires the
show to go.

In the ten straight plays that he has written, that’s what he
usually starts with.

How does this end? Then he starts at the beginning with
the characters. Sometimes, it doesn’t get to where he originally envisioned. It
may have a completely different ending. That is his process.

Jim is usually at a lucky place when it comes to attracting
his audiences. He is normally at a place in which his producers take on that
responsibility. They usually have a publicity plan and they still rely on
newspapers and the printed word to get the word out. They take out ads. When
Jim is doing a show like Character Man,
which I am happy to say is almost sold out…Monday night; he uses social media
like Facebook, Email, and his mailing list, to let people know that way.

When
he works with a producer, he goes back to that word “focus”.

He needs to keep
his eye on creating the show, being there and being present, and let someone
else do that kind of work.

Leading up to show time, Jim plays poker till show time,
clears his throat, and walks out on stage. If there are no poker players
around, Jim does a crossword puzzle until about fifteen minutes before show
time. It is almost a form of meditation. It gets Jim out of the world and into
his mind and he’s using his brain.

I asked Jim if there is any show throughout history that he
wishes he had seen. He would have loved to have seen the original production of
Out of This World, the Cole Porter
show that starred George Gaynes and Charlotte Greenwood and Davey Burns. Jim
thinks it is one of the best forgotten scores. It wasn’t a big hit of Porter’s,
but the cast was absolutely spectacular. The original cast album is so
wonderful and funny. David Burns sings a song with Charlotte called Cherry Pies Ought to Be You. It is a
riff on a song performed earlier in the show by William Redfield and Barbara
Ashley as a real love song version. David Burns and Charlotte Greenwood sang
lyrics like “Shooting Pains Out to be you. When it rains, it ought to be you.”

It was quite a clever show. That is the one show he would have liked to have seen.

Charlotte Greenwood

I asked Jim if he had any vocal remedies for throat issues
for my singer friends that read this blog. Jim says he doesn’t have sore
throats, usually. He is of the Ethel Merman School of singing. It’s always been
there. He clears his throat before going out on stage. When he did the show
recently on the ship, he had a sinus infection. People told him he sounded
better than ever.

Jim’s fondest memory among many is the day he met Steve. It
was twenty- eight years ago. Steve was playing One More Kiss from Follies
on a ship. Jim was singing by himself with drink in hand. At the end, Steve
went over to Jim and asked how he knew that song.

I hope that you’ll join me next Monday night for Character Man, but ACT FAST!

Jim tells
me this is a very personal show about these great character men of whom we’ll
never see the likes of again. These men all influenced Jim. Steven Schwartz is
also scheduled to be there. The last song of the show is For Good from Wicked. There
is a line from that song that goes, “Because I knew You, I’ve been changed for
good.” Because Jim knew Davie Burns, Lou
Jacobi, Jack Gilford, Jack Albertson, and Charles Nelson Reilly, he has been
changed for good. I can say the same thing about Jim Brochu, MY favorite character man!

“Character Man” is a salute to the great supporting players
of Broadway, filled with touching backstage stories and personal recollections.
Written by Brochu, the show spotlights the work of Jack Gilford, Jackie
Gleason, Robert Preston, Zero Mostel, George S. Irving, Cyril Ritchard, Barney
Martin and Brochu’s own mentor and friend, two-time Tony Award winner, David
Burns.

With
direction by Robert Bartley (creator/director of “Broadway Backwards” and the
upcoming “Bedbugs: The Musical.”)“Character Man” features the songs of Kander and Ebb, Bock and Harnick,
Meredith Willson, Stephen Sondheim, Bob Merrill and Stephen Schwartz among
others. John Fischer is musical director.

Brochu,
who will share photos and videos from his own collection during the evening
said, “There would be no Broadway without these men who supported the great
stars and got the laughs without getting the girl. I began my own career as a
character man at a time when I got to know these men and learn from them. David
Burns was like a second father to me and I grew up backstage hanging out with
him and Zero Mostel and Jack Gilford and Charles Nelson Reilly and John
Carradine. They were amazing, dear, funny

Jim Brochu as Zero Mostel. Photo credit: Michael Lamont

men and I don’t want them to be
forgotten.”

“Character
Man” will have an Off-Broadway run next year after Brochu has wrapped up
commitments to his “Zero Hour” tour. Steve Schalchlin and Jeramiah Peay are
presenting the one-night only Triad Theatre performance. Tickets are $20.00
(cover charge) plus two drink minimum and are available at Brown Paper Tickets
(800-838-3006) or Online at: TriadNYC.Com.

Thank
you Jim Brochu for the gifts you have given to the world and continue
to give!

With grateful XOXOXs ,

Check out my site celebrating my forthcoming book on Hello, Dolly!I want this to be a definitive account of Hello, Dolly!
If any of you reading this have appeared in any production of Dolly, I'm interested in speaking with you!

Friday, September 21, 2012

I became familiar with E.Faye Butler as a result of my my interview
with Georgia Engel.

First and foremost, when E. Faye Butler was approached to
play Dolly Levi in Hello, Dolly in
1990, there hadn’t been too many opportunities for African-American women to
lead a cast in the Chicago Theater scene, especially in musicals.

When they
approached E. Faye about this, she was very excited. It was Dolly! It wasn’t
something that would be traditionally done so she was excited by it. David
Dillon and Marc Robin, who co-directed, contacted E. Faye to tell her they
wanted her.

Director David Dillon

David also happened to be a good acquaintance with Jerry Herman.
Jerry and David had known one another for quite a few years and had worked on a benefit together in Chicago in 1987. David worked closely with Jerry even getting him to reinstate one of Merman’s cut
songs, Love, Look in my Window. Johnny Lazarra, who produced the show, had never spent the kind of money
that was spent on this production on any prior production. E. Faye even forwent
part of her salary because she believed in this show so much.

Most of the
chorus was making more money than E. Faye!

One of the things she desired was
authentic costumes and she really wanted to make sure that they had a staircase.

The Drury Lane Dinner Theater South was in the round. They had to take one of the
sections of the theater out in order to build the stairway. They had never done
that before. It cost a lot of money taking out an entire section. That is where
E. Faye’s salary went, that and the costumes. John Beasley, who played
Vandergelder, had done a lot of film and television. E. Faye loved working with
Beasley. He was cantankerous as Horace.

John Beasley

He was strong and wise and he is such a
great actor. He was open to the process.

He wasn’t a great singer and E. Faye
loved that about him. He came with such a strong acting background. He gave her
a lot to work with. Again, that helped her heavily as she dug deeper into the
script. The text came alive a lot stronger with Beasley at the helm.

David Dillon had great instincts on the show. He was the one
who connected E. Faye with The Matchmaker.
He suggested she go back and read it, think about it, and bring some of that
text forward to Hello, Dolly. He desired
her to look at the heart of Dolly. He didn’t want to do just another retelling
of Dolly. That’s why he went back to Jerry Herman. David always felt that there
was a hole in the show when Dolly “jumps” from talking to Ephraim to Before the Parade Passes By.

Adding
Love,Look in my Window connected a
lot with E. Faye as well as the audience. Marc Robin, who also choreographed in
addition to co-directing, made a beautiful pas de deux reminiscent of what
Dolly and Ephraim may have done as kids.

There were many beautiful pictures
that the two directors created.

E. Faye Butler was the reason for the show instead of the
other way around. They built the show around her.

At the time, this was E. Faye’s first leading lady part.
Now, she approaches characters from what she learned from her approach to
discovering Dolly.

When they were sitting around the table, in the early stages
of production, E. Faye wanted a multi-cultural cast. It wasn’t important to E.
Faye that this be an African-American company.

She wanted it to be
representative of an American city and town.

Marc and David put together a
really good multicultural cast.

She didn’t want Horace to be
European-American.

It was important that
Horace and Dolly be of the same race as to not confuse the audience.

Once that
was in place, they started to work on the material. David said to E. Faye that
he had been taking to Jerry Herman and that there were two songs that were not
used in Dolly outside of Merman’s
run.

Jerry was willing to allow this production to use one of those
songs. They went off of the old Merman 45. Jerry said he didn't have the charts for that song readily available, but since David had the Merman recording, he just asked that they copy what was there.
Jerry asked that they transcribe the songs and to record them with E.
Faye singing them and to send back to him so he could OK it. The song they
reinstated was Love, Look in my Window.
That song goes before the Ephraim, let me
go…speech. After the speech is Before
the Parade Passes By.

E. Faye approached Dolly as a meddlesome “everybody’s
friend.” From E. Faye’s perspective, she’s a bit of a con woman, but in a nice
way. She gets what she wants; she’s “ballsy.”

E. Faye would LOVE to revisit Dolly. If she was to do it
again, she would go even deeper into the text. So many times, people go for the
comedy of Dolly and not necessarily the heart.

E. Faye did go back to The
Matchmaker as part of her preparation.

E.Faye did see Carol Channing play Dolly in her last tour in
1994. After knowing the story of Dolly and the additional songs that were
originally written for Merman, E. Faye somewhat missed the text with Channing.

She felt the meat of who Dolly Levi is from The
Matchmaker was missing. She feels there is much more there than a lot of
people really look at. Dolly is such a strong woman of her time doing what she
is doing, making a way for her with such a strong spirit. She loves and she
wants love and she needs love. Sometimes that doesn’t come through for Dolly.

E. Faye also saw Florence Lacy play the role. She loved her,
thought she did a lovely Dolly. It was a different take on Dolly completely,
but totally Flo. That is the best thing about Dolly. You have to have a part of
yourself in that character in order to do a good Dolly. That’s what it is. You
have to be vulnerable in order to share a part of yourself with an audience.

E. Faye has only seen one Dolly who missed the mark. It was
Edie Adams at the Bucks County Playhouse in Bucks County, Pennsylvania.

Edie Adams

It was
like an “instant cake mix Dolly…or microwave Dolly.” It was if someone took her
out, thawed her, put her in a costume, put in the microwave, turned her on, and
put her on the stage. E. Faye just didn’t get it. There was no comedy there.

E. Faye loves Jerry Herman. Jerry is a sweetheart. She has
been very fortunate to do a couple of celebrations in which he was honored. Once
at the Helen Hayes Awards, E. Faye was chosen to do some of his music.

Jerry is
a loving, kind man. E. Faye had the honor of Jerry sharing songs with her. She
likes him because he is straight forward. She loves that he fights for what he
believes in. She cannot say enough about him.

She thinks that it’s wonderful
that this man has such a love of music. He has been blessed with such an
amazing talent. He is still doing it.

E. Faye first fell in love with Dolly when she started taking
apart the Ephraim, let me go…speech
in rehearsal. She really looked at it and then went back to The Matchmaker. She knew that Dolly was
a warm, loving, caring person who wants so much out of life. She has lost her soul
mate in Ephraim.

The first time that E. Faye heard the entire score to Dolly was when she was in college. Prior
to that, she only knew the title song due to frequent radio play. Ribbons down My Back was the first song
from the score that took E. Faye’s breath away. She was searching for an
audition song. That was a song that spoke to her. As she began to listen to the
entire score, she said to herself that this was really a beautiful show.

There
is a lot of beautiful music in the score that she had not heard prior to her
exploration. She thought the patter songs were quite funny.

The Drury Lane Dinner Theater, now a Walmart, was on the
south side of Chicago. On the second performance a heckler of the worst kind
appeared at the theater. E. Faye was filled with such joy and love because they
had such an amazing cast.

The theater had gone out of their way to make this the
perfect production. It was E. Faye’s first leading lady role in a role that is
not traditionally portrayed by an African-American. She comes down the aisle at
the top of the show, passing out Dolly’s business cards. When she entered on “Mrs.
Dolly Levi”, a man in the center section of the theater stood up and shouted, “I
didn’t pay my money to see a ni**er play Dolly!” That was a major realization
for E. Faye, in a moment that was otherwise filled with immense joy. The
producers had to pull him out of the theater as he wanted to continue that
protest.

He refused to sit down or leave. They had to forcibly remove
him. The theater sat about eight hundred people. The entire cast froze on
stage. E. Faye stood there with these cards in her hand contemplating her next
move. If she stopped, she was dead. She knew that she had to keep forging
ahead. Otherwise, she would give him power. She also had all these people
standing on stage. She kept on going. As she forged ahead, he kept yelling over
her. It was absolutely one of those moments in her life she will never forget. It
was her worst moment with this show.

There was never any feeling of race with this production
until that man stood up. There was, however, a significant increase of
African-American audiences for this production. That is a show that most
African-Americans would not have gone to. It was amazing how many people saw
the show and told E. Faye that they had seen Pearl Bailey do it. They thought
the show was lovely and charming and they loved the music. It did introduce so
many African-Americans in that community to theater at large as well as to
Dolly.

She still has African-American business owners who, eighteen years
later, tell her that seeing her in Dolly
was the first time that they went to see a live show.

There is a Mrs. Harris in
Chicago, who owns a restaurant, who still calls E. Faye “Dolly”. It doesn’t
matter what show she does, Mrs. Harris says, “Dolly…”

E.Faye simply responds
with, “Yes ma’m.”

E. Faye doesn’t even think she knows her name. When she sees
her walk through the door, it’s Dolly!

On the back end of it, she knew she had something that most
actresses playing Dolly had never had. She had a song that had rarely been done
on stage. Jerry Herman didn’t give that song to Barbra Streisand. He didn’t
give it to Pearl Bailey. He didn’t give it to Carol Channing. E. Faye was among
the first to sing this outside of Ethel Merman.

Hello, Dolly is
absolutely among the top five shows of her career. It changed the face of her
career. It changed the way people see her and perceive her. Without a doubt, it
was the first time that people looked at her as a leading lady. That is a big
mountain to climb in this business. People finally look at you and go “oh, she’s
no longer the girlfriend of so and so with just the eleven o’clock number. She
can be the leading lady.”

E. Faye brought a sensibility to the production that came as
a result of being raised by strong women. Her father died when she was young.

She had the strength of a lot of women who had to survive by themselves after
tragedy and raised E.Faye with a strong sense of who she was. That’s who Dolly
is. She has a strong sense of who she is. She still wants and needs love. She
is just waiting for permission. E. Faye watched her mom do that.

She sacrificed
getting married again because she wanted to wait and make sure it was the right
man at the right time and he was going to do the right thing. E. Faye pulled a
lot from her mother and her grandmother. E. Faye’s grandmother just passed in
March of this year (2012) at one hundred and two. E. Faye learned a lot about
the period and how elegant it was, the way women held themselves, how to be a
lady. Sometimes, unless you’re doing one of these productions, one tends to
forget that. Just wearing a corset changes the whole feeling of what you do. E.
Faye loves wearing a corset on stage. She thinks it gives you a whole different
perspective of where you are and how you act. Putting on those buttoned up
shoes and the skirts, two or three underskirts, with the jackets, with the gloves,
with the hat and purse; you realize it wasn’t an easy life. It was all of those
dynamics.

E. Faye continued to tweak her performance after she opened.
She said you can’t help but tweet. The more you are within that armor, the more
you understand her. Dolly has armor about her. There is strength to Dolly.

She
has armor, but the lovely moments of this show is when she pulls the armor
back. When she is teaching Cornelius and
Barnaby to dance, it is just lovely.

She is trying to match everyone up because
that’s what she wants.

The one thing that E. Faye learned from playing Dolly that
she has carried forth in her life and career is to “go for what you desire. Don’t
be afraid.” She has also learned not to be afraid to be vulnerable on stage. It
is a very hard thing to do on stage. It serves you well.

Audiences have loved Dolly over the years because of the
music. It is recognizable. It is family oriented. We don’t have a lot of shows
like that. It makes sense. It tells a great story.

The title song is what Jerry Herman does best. He finds a
theme. He finds the right phrase and he sticks to it. He does it with simplicity.
Add to that Dolly in a red dress with an all male chorus. There is something
about all men singing a song. It is strong and hard, especially after that
amazing Waiter’s Gallop. You settle
in your seat and celebrate the pageantry of it. Americans love pageantry. It’s
like singing the Star Spangled Banner.

Dolly is sacred to E. Faye. There is no “spin” on her. It’s
akin to those that bastardize the Star
Spangled Banner. We all know how it was written.For Faye, there is a gradual build up and the
title song until you hit the stride of that rhythm. There is a heartbeat there
that runs through that song. It starts to move. It then accelerates. It gets
fuller and fuller and fills you with so much joy.

Don’t over think it. Stay in the moment and have lots and lots of fun.

That first night that E. Faye appeared at the top of the
stairs and the audience didn’t stop applauding, she knew this was going to be a
great Dolly! She didn’t do anything
but just appear there. It was that signature staircase and the guys standing at
attention. It is the Waiter’s Gallop
and everything building up to that moment. It is such a magical moment that
when “Dolly” steps out from behind the curtains, and she stands at the top of
those steps, and she feels the love of people of people who have seen and heard
that number both on stage, film, and television, it lights your heart.

Because of the success of this production, the theater then
had cache. They could do any production they desired and get any actors they
wanted. They now had production values. It was a credible show. E. Faye won a
Joseph Jefferson Award, the first such honor for this theater. The Joseph
Jefferson Awards Committee celebrates the vitality of Chicago area theatre by
recognizing excellence through its recommendations, awards and honors. She won
for Best Actress in a Musical for her portrayal of Dolly. It changed a lot of
things for E. Faye AND the theater and for that area. She will always appreciate
Drury Lane and Johnny Lazar for doing it. They took a gamble together and they
won.

Their closing night, they cried and cried and didn’t want it
to end. It was historic for everyone because it was a multiracial company.

E. Faye Butler as Wiletta Mayer. Photo by Joan Marcus.

Everyone cried as they watched the staircase come down.

Her opening night gift
for the company, she cooked Cornish hens, and beets, and potatoes for the
entire company!

She made thirty six Cornish hens! The entire company had a
great love for one another.

One funny moment happened during a “senior” matinee. They
bus the audiences in from the senior citizen homes and assisted living facilities.
They are great audiences.

They know the show. Some were thinking they were
seeing Pearl Bailey. It didn’t matter.

On this particular matinee, in the hat shop scene when Dolly
is teaching Barnaby and Cornelius to dance, Dolly’s line is, “You’re next Mr.
Tucker.” A woman in the audience shouted out, “What did she say?” The woman
behind her shouted back, “You’re next little Fu@#er!” As Pearl Bailey would have done, E. Faye broke
the fourth wall and said, “Thank you m’am.”

If given the chance, E. Faye would love to do Hello, Dolly
once again even if she was playing Mrs. Rose. Mrs. Rose is an acquaintance from
Dolly's old neighborhood.

Hello, Dolly gave
E. Faye Butler the opportunity to wish, dream, and put in motion everything she
always desired to do in this business as a stage actress. Dolly gave her the opportunity to think outside the box, to be
brave, to go after what she wanted. Ephraim is essentially speaking to Dolly
and asking her to let go, to go out there and LIVE. Dolly did that for E. Faye as well! Thank you E. Faye Butler for the gift you have given to the world and will continue to give!!

With grateful XOXOXs ,

Check out my site celebrating my forthcoming book on Hello, Dolly! I want this to be a definitive account of Hello, Dolly!
If any of you reading this have appeared in any production of Dolly, I'm interested in speaking with you!